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Callaloo 26.3 (2003) 708


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Strange Fruit

Chris Abani

1

Her skeleton was a pendulum.
A forgotten wind chime. Birds pecked at
bugs, with beaks like pens dotting I's.
She hung, full of something
that wasn't quite promise -

2

The blood dried quickly in the sand,
but sadness, like the buzzing of bees,
troubled the afternoon for days.

3

A fly landed with the weight of sorrow
on the dying woman's nose; her rasping
breath grooming its wings -

4

The dog's affectionate lick of her dangling
foot was spiced by the blood on her toe.

5

But shadows are gossiping in the sand
among the trees. And death,
darkening features like the hard
of old wood, is here.


 

Chris Abani, a Middleton Fellow at the University of Southern California, teaches at Antioch University's MFA program in Los Angeles. A poet, playwright, and fiction writer, Abani is the author of the novels Masters of the Board (Delta, 1985) and Sirocco (Swan, 1987); the plays Room at the Top (IBC, 1983) and Song of a Broken Flute (IMOSU, 1990), among others; and the poetry collections Kalakuta Republic (Saqi, 2001), winner of the 2001 PEN USA West Freedom-to-Write Award and the 2001 Prince Claus of Netherlands Award, and Daphne's Lot (Red Hen Press, 2003). Graceland, a novel, is forthcoming from Farrar, Straus & Giroux in 2004.

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